Minty Fresh
by V-San
Summary: Response to Kimmeth's toothpaste challenge-in which it is revealed that Miss Hardbroom practices one of the odder aspects of ancient witchcraft.


_Minty Fresh_

When most people thought of witches, the occult came to mind. Pagan rituals, readings of tea leaves and the stars to discover the future and horoscopes to divine personalities.

What no one really took into account was how impractical this all really was. One witch's theory was:

''Why bother swirling mucky tea and looking for sky crabs when you can just have a good old rummage through the medicine cabinet?"

Of course, the idea stuck and became something of a tradition.

At first, witches had taken to divining fates through the use of assorted hair products (which were slightly oilier and smelled more like newt's eyes in those days) and there was much rejoicing among the covens of the ancient world. Until someone realized the visions of prosperous futures and magnificent glory probably had more to do with the various hallucinogens placed in the shampoos than anything else.

Things continued on in a similar vein for centuries (you could put drugs in just about anything back then) until one witch had the rather inventive idea of using toothpaste, proclaiming;

"What do we place greater value in than our mouths? Look to the toothpaste for answers!"

The fact that she was roaring drunk at the time went largely forgotten in the grand scheme of things.

And so, history was made. Toothpastes of all varieties were used in the foretelling of prophecies, divinations for the futures of kings and the finding of small lost objects placed on tables only to be gone moments later.

However, as is the way of all things the usage of toothpaste fizzled out over time and went largely forgotten, only practiced by a handful of modern witches.

Constance Hardbroom was somewhat embarrassed to admit that she was one of said practicing witches.

Oh, she never really mentioned it to anyone. It wasn't the kind of thing you could blurt out in public after all, but it was the principal that mattered.

The idea of using a method created by centuries old lunatic witches was laughable in itself. The notion that different flavours could be used to track the stars and planets in the sky (Bubblegum was particularly good for this) made little to no sense, almost enough for Constance to stop using the method altogether if not for one problem.

It worked.

The witches of the dark ages had all been insane, of that she was sure, but they knew their witchcraft.

Which was why every third Friday of the year, Constance sat on her bathroom floor with several tubes of mint toothpaste and proceeded to spread them in wiggly lines across the stones.

Drawing several patterns on the floor, she turned her eyes towards the toothpaste and gazed into the future of Cackle's Academy.

"It seems that Miss Bat is scheduling a concert for two weeks before now and that Fenella Feverfew and Griselda Blackwood are planning to disrupt this afternoon's potion class, I shall have to put a stop to these incidents before any unwanted disruption is caused."

Gazing deeper at the squiggles of minty paste, she quirked an eyebrow and sighed.

"And it seems that Mildred Hubble is once again trapped in the storage closet by the grand hall."

She glanced once more over the toothpaste before vanishing suddenly, on her way to liberate Mildred from her early morning predicament.

The students often wondered how Miss Hardbroom seemed to know the comings and goings of the school like the back of her hand. It would be more accurate to say she knew them like the bottom of a tube of toothpaste.

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_AN. HB telling the future through toothpaste? It could happen...  
Hope you guys enjoyed this ('specially Kimmeth, whose challenge inspired meXD) I was just going for something plain silly here.  
If it helps at all, try imagining the ancient witches with personalities like Nanny Ogg from Terry Pratchet's Diskworld books, since that was the kind of feel I was trying to give them._


End file.
